Re: Look and Feel

[Jesse Ross]

> > The Mac interface was designed first.
> No, the interface was designed by XEROX Parc and was in fact more or 
> less overtly stolen by Apple. This is a clear fact, as the historical 
> record indicates, and not my opinion.

Yeah -- I know about XEROX. I wasn't sure if they had a top menu or 
not, though, so I didn't want to make that statement.

> AFAIK, the decision to put the scrollbar on the left was a pure 
> usability decision, Jesse. There have been several reasons cited: The 
> fact that the scrollbar on the left is closer to the Application menu, 
> and the fact that the scrollbar on the left is closer to the majority 
> of text in Left-to-Right western writing systems.

I don't disagree. I think the left scroll bar is more usable as well. I 
was simply stating that there are two conflicts: what users are 
accustomed to, and what is more usable. I also wanted to point out that 
there is no "best interface" or a certain interface to look to as the 
model of usability, because in many cases we don't know what the 
motivations for a certain interface decision was.

> I am frankly comfortable with both scrollbars, and with the advent of 
> wheel mice, I rarely use scrollbars anyways.

Me too.

> > However, if GNUstep were to provide a top menu bar as the _default_ 
> > (it can be an option all we want), it may get into the habit of 
> > copying a lot of other Mac-isms and then become little more than a 
> > Mac clone.
>
> Research has also shown that it's not so good for extremely 
> high-resoluion monitors. It's best for 800x600 and 1024x768, but IMHO 
> is not for stuff ~1152x864 and over.

I haven't seen the research, but I believe you. The usability research 
I've read has stated that menus at the top and bottom edges of the 
screen are easier to hit than elements at specific locations within the 
body of the screen area. Also, the top menu bar stays static, which 
improves intuitive gestures towards that area -- palette windows do not 
have permanence of location, but are more functional if the user has 
built a familiarity with the environment and customized it to their 
workflow.

> > The palette menu is one of GNUstep's strongest identifying marks. Do 
> > we go with the usable option, or the distinctive option?
>
> The problem here is that you're making a big jump in claiming that one 
> is more usable than the other. I like horizontal menus, and I was one 
> of the people who convinced Michael to write/renew WildMenus, but I 
> don't use them myself. You also may not realize that one of the very 
> useful things about GNUstep menus is that the submenus are detachable, 
> which many, many, many people find quite useful. I suggest you explore 
> our UI paradigms before you presume to know what's best. A little bit 
> of open-mindedness goes a long way.

Sorry -- maybe my email came off more harsh than it was meant to be. 
Mostly I wanted to end the debates back and forth and just find a way 
to compromise or reach some agreement on the direction to go.

There are a lot of people on both sides of the argument, and I wanted 
to try to bridge that gap by saying "You guys think the Mac menu is 
more usable, and maybe it is, and you guys think the NeXT menu is more 
powerful and distinctive, and maybe it is, but let's just find a way to 
make a decision and move forward." I really do NOT intend to be the 
"pushy designer guy who thinks he knows everything" -- I don't know 
everything, I'm not a NeXT expert, and I have no right telling you how 
your interface should be -- you all have put a lot more time and effort 
into this project than I have. I want to offer suggestions and help, so 
if I'm stepping on toes, just let me know and I'll back off and just 
make some icons :)

I didn't join to project to attack it or the hard work that everyone 
has put into it -- I want to make the interface better, that's all. I 
like the palette windows, I LOVE tear off menus. I think they're a 
brilliant idea and work great. Granted, I did make it sound like there 
was a great distance between the Mac-style menu and the NeXT-style one 
-- I don't think it's that drastic. I'm sorry if my emails make me 
sound like an ass. I'm really not. I'm a designer who knows a lot about 
how to make things more attractive, and usually how to make things more 
organized and usable too.

> > There will always be two camps here on this issue -- but we have to 
> > somehow reach a decision on what the default option is and all stand 
> > behind it and push it like it's the best interface ever.
>
> There's no one "best interface", as someone (I think Nicolas) 
> previously stated.

I think I said that, but Nicolas might have said it too. Whatever 
decision we make, we need to push it _like_ it's the best interface 
ever (even if "best" is totally subjective). We need to sell it to 
other developers and users, because that's how we get more mindshare 
and we find out how to make things even better. By showing people how 
great it is, we help the project live and grow. That was what I was 
trying to get across (it was supposed to be a rallying cry :)

J.